Wow, Thursday 7/27 has my Head Shaking

There is much to write about, and I hope I can be succinct.

1st, the skinny repeal plan will probably be my health insurance nightmare for 7 months if it passes.  Why, because if you remove the requirement that everybody get health insurance, you have what NY had before Obamacare.  Insurance companies must cover anybody who applies for health insurance.  And if people wait until they are sick to sign up for health insurance, insurance companies get screwed.  So they raise premiums to cover that risk.  I was paying $1500 a month for health insurance in 2012 for 1 person.  Now I pay roughly $700 a month on an equivalent basis including deductibles. So if the Senate passes the Skinny Repeal, they will be raising the costs for everybody in the individual market by probably at least 100%.  But we cannot be sure because all the GOP Senate Leadership wants is to pass something so they can negotiate with the House, and who knows what will happen in that process.  The House bill maintained an incentive for the uninsured to not be uninsured.  I am stunned by the lack of normal process in both the House and the Senate as they attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare and effects 18% of the economy.

2nd Ross Douthat is responsible for the Wow.  He lays out a comprehensive logic for the impeachment of President Trump, all revolving around his "management" of Attorney General Sessions.  "If it were any other President suddenly behaving this erratically and irrationally, we'd be talking about mental incapacity, speculating about strokes, considering 25th Amendment remedies"  You have to read the column.

Link to Douthat column

I'll stop there.

This weeks's most outrageous Trump act:  Politicizing the Boy Scouts as purveyor of Trump Values.

P.S. 7/28  Charles Krauthammer also wants to impeach Trump (almost, he'd go there if the House started a process)

Link to Krauthammer column

Why Russia Matters - Follow the Money

I always enjoy finding I have written something before a pundit columnist writes about it.  It is not that I think they read this blog, it is just enough encouragement that I do have some original value when I write.  So thank you Ruth Marcus for discussing the concept of outrage overload.

The New Republic came earlier this week and one article was a very long cataloging of how Trump's Manhattan properties have been used by Russian mobsters to launder money, conduct other nefarious activities and in general help to enrich Donald Trump.  Trump was on the proverbial financial ropes in the early 1990's when individual wealthy Russians started buying his condominiums.  These sales helped make his condominium business succeed and that success, along with the Russian mob's continued buying of these condominiums, morphed into Trump licensing his name so that the Real Estate business provided an annuity income to him.  It doesn't take too much extrapolation to see the possibility that the Russian mob through their condominium ownership in the U.S. is responsible for much of Donald Trump's income.

So without the benefit of Trump's Tax Returns which might reveal a path to unraveling this relationship, we are left only with the possibility that the Special Prosecutor will unravel this mess with the powers that they have.  I saw something that suggested they can get the IRS to give them the tax returns.  And of course, Trump always signals the path to follow because he is compelled to be a bully.  This week he tweeted, and his lawyers went on TV stating, telling Bob Mueller, that Trump's finances are out-of-bounds, and not part of Mueller's charge of what to investigate.  Go Bob Go.  At least key members of the GOP spoke publicly saying Trump is wrong about the mandate of the Special Prosecutor and Bob Mueller can go wherever he wants to with his investigation.

As I have stated from the get-go, I believe Donald Trump is using the office of the Presidency to enrich himself in a manner that is certainly unethical and almost certainly in violation of the Emoluments Clause, so I believe all this will be the path to impeaching this poor example of humanity.  I just don't know what it will take to get the House GOP to allow this to come to a vote and get 30 to 40 members of the House GOP to agree with the Democrats that Impeachment is warranted.  Perhaps a Trump firing of Bob Mueller will get them moving.

So why do the Russians like Donald Trump?  At this point, I believe it is one of two possibilities.

1.  Trump is in financial cahoots explicitly with certain Russian individuals through the Condominium Business and the Russians think they can influence him in important ways.  As an example, we have cut off supplying arms to Syrian Rebels who have been fighting both Assad and Al Qaeda and ISIS.  These are obviously the good rebels and you wonder why Trump would agree to stop supplying them with arms.  The only possible answer is Russia wanted this.

2.  Trump is a naive simpleton who thinks anybody who is rich and buys his properties is an OK person.  He cannot contemplate that money laundering is bad, the sources of such money bad, or that free wheeling criminal activity based within property he developed is bad.  He loves being rich so badly that he is blind to how anybody else got rich and sees no evil in their wealth.   In this case, the Russians are well aware of his simpleness and know how to manipulate him.  The result is the same as the 1st path, it is just that this alone is probably not a criminal activity by Trump or his company, it simply shows unethical the collective enterprise is.

Either path can explain why Trump's people took so many meetings with the Russians during the campaign.  What I cannot explain is why Jeff Sessions had so many meetings with the Russians.  I thought he was a believer in Ronald Reagan's view of Russia that you have to Trust, but Verify everything with them.

And now to the overload this week.  Politically D.C. is in a chaotic place because Trump is a terrible manager.  He has no concept of political process.  The examples this week are too numerous for me to go into.  So I will provide a link to a column that goes through the White House portion of this chaos.  For the Congressional chaos you will have to read past issues of newspapers, if you didn't already.

Link to Column about chaos in Trump Administration


Meanwhile, what is wrong with Poland?  Why are they ending the Independent Judiciary?  Is Poland going to return to a Dictatorship?  I have enough trouble keeping up with things in the U.S.  Poland was my favorite investment when I was an Emerging Market Portfolio Manager and at one time, I was so comfortable with their direction, that my portfolio was the single largest holder of their US $ bonds.

Paris Accord and America

I am going to look for a silver lining here so as to perhaps calm any panic that this Trumpian Act of knowing what is best for America by withdrawing the USA from the Paris Accord may have caused my readers.

1st, remember this is only possible because President Obama couldn't get the 67 votes in the Senate to ratify the Paris Accord as a Treaty and the U.S. is still bound by an earlier Treaty.  So, if there is a different President in 4 years, they can presumably reinstitute the Paris Accord in the same manner.

2nd, remember that certain large states can have an outsized influence on how the U.S. actually performs in managing certain issues that will effect how we reduce greenhouse gases.  California, New York and like minded states can issue regulations that force cars throughout the U.S. to use fuel more efficiently.  They also consume a lot of electricity.  So anything they do to encourage renewable energy can assist the U.S. in reducing green house gases.

3rd, coal is not coming back in any large way.  No electricity company is building coal plants.  They are building gas plants because natural gas has a big cost advantage over coal and consumer demand for renewable energy is encouraging expansion of such facilities.  I am for example, by contract, only consuming wind generated electricity.  I don't know how, with a grid composed of nuclear, gas, coal, hydro, wind and solar, they can know that I get only wind, but I suspect since electricity is a commingled energy, that I am paying for wind and then that cost gets subtracted out of the costs everybody else pays.  In effect, I am guaranteeing the wind company my revenue.

4th, the West Coast and the NorthEast (absent Maine & NH), as well as the Democratic minority in every other state, are in open revolt.  We support doing anything within the circle of legality to oppose everything in the Trump Agenda and we will encourage our states to do the right thing where they can get something done in the State government.

But meanwhile, there is absolutely nothing Donald Trump does that makes me anything other than depressed and angry at his supporters.  But we need some of those supporters to switch sides, so we have to respect their opinions no matter how difficult that is and try to convince them with hard examples that Trump is not managing the country to benefit them.

The American Police State is a Reality

From a NYT news article.

"In Virginia, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents waited outside a church shelter where undocumented immigrants had gone to stay warm.  In Texas and in Colorado, agents went into courthouses, looking for foreigners who had arrived for hearings on other matters."

"At Kennedy International Airport in New York, passengers arriving after a 5 hour flight from San Francisco were asked to show their documents before they were allowed to get off the plane."

I don't fly very much any more, but I can guarantee you that if I am asked to show a document to get off the plane, I will refuse and dial 911 to report a kidnapping if I am made a prisoner.  There is no legal requirement in this country that requires providing documents to get off a means of transportation.

Fighting Trump and the GOP policies will not be easy

3 Columns today highlight the difficulty in opposing King Donald and the necessity of doing so.

The 1st column, written by a former conservative radio talk show host, highlights the success and danger of the successful delegitimization of main stream media by conservative media.  Many Trump supporters believe the truth and facts are fabrications and only alternative facts and King Donald's beliefs are the truth.  The writer regrets participating in this, but it stills highlights the need for a focused Democratic effort on the policy front to convince Trump supporters who still read main stream media that they have a coherent economic message.

Why Trump Supporter's Don't Care That He Lies

The danger of this is the fact that some of these Trump supporters think 9/11 and Sandy Hook were executed by agents of the U.S. Government because that is what Alternative Media like the Drudge Report and Breitbart News are telling them.  Unless those sites change their ways, which they will not because they make their money off the clicks on their website and giving the reader what they want to read is the way to keep them coming back.  They are the media equivalent of the Tobacco and Alcohol Industries.  Not to mention that most of them think President Obama is a muslim born in Kenya and who rode that falsehood to the pinnacle of power.

The 2nd column is written by Ross Douthat and simply highlights the fact that the country is split 50/50 and the rhetoric that the Democrat's both need to use to combat Trump and and keep their base motivated turns off the other 50% and makes it difficult to get them to listen to what else the Democrats have to say.  Crafting something that will make sense to potential swing voters in the Rust Belt and N.H./N.C./Florida is essential but how you communicate that is a challenge that must be meet for the Democrats to have success in 2018/2020.

Douthat "The Counternarrative ...Excludes too much of America"


Meanwhile, there is the issue of the courts and they are the last obstacle to holding King Donald somewhat in check.  And the key issue that Democrats must focus on is not Roe v Wade, other Social issues, or gun control, it is basic civil liberties and the separation of powers.  The courts are last barrier between President Trump and King Donald.  And how Supreme Courts nominee Judge Gorsuch answers questions about those issues should determine how Democrats vote on his nomination.

Link to Linda Greenhouse column

King Donald Shows How He Plans to Govern

We shouldn't be surprised at the way in which things have transpired, but it is so different from the norm that it is surprising.

But in that difference we see why the norm is the norm.  Policies have unintended consequences and bureaucracies have the expertise to understand possible consequences and inform the policy makers of them so the consequences can be considered in formulating policies to achieve goals without incurring undesirable costs.

This is something the Obama Administration forgot (or didn't understand) when they mandated certain coverages into Obamacare.  Yes, the costs for health insurance came down in NY State, but not in many of the other rural states with less comprehensive health regulations.  Similarly with raising the minimum wage, an appropriate minimum wage in an urban area is higher than an appropriate minimum wage in a rural area.  And how do you manage the geographic transition between the two areas?

But I digress, I need to address King Donald whose immigration policy and desire for extreme vetting  is really not all that different from what President Obama was doing except in one straight forward way:  President Obama didn't issue a blanket ban on any one country's people and tell people NFW your getting in.

So let us look at the consequences of this ban.  The Head of the Iraqi Army, whose family lives in the U.S,. cannot meet with the leaders of the U.S. Army he is trying to coordinate with in the U.S.  People who have helped us in these countries, been through the vetting process, have had their VISA's withdrawn.  The public way in which this was done will help radical terrorists a bit in their recruiting.  And we will discourage Muslims from helping us fight radical Islam by showing a bitter insensitivity in failing to recognize individuality and accepting of differences, the basis of our countries entire history.

The U.S. is great because the best and the brightest had the chutzpah to recognize there was terror at home and they needed to get up and go.  When the best and brightest everywhere else got to the U.S., they helped make America Great in the 1st Place.  If my 63 years of living have shown me anything, it is that immigrants and their descendent's work harder than native born for 1 or 2 generations before normalizing.  There is nothing more motivating to move than terror in one's home country.  The best and brightest from those 7 countries are on the move and wherever they land will benefit from their brains and energy and work ethic.

None of this matters to King Donald.  He wants to do stuff and he is doing it without any input from those who understand unintended consequences.  And he wants to fire anybody who disagrees with him because they understand the unintended consequences.  I am not referring to the Justice Department, but rather Homeland Security and The State Department, neither of which was consulted.  And thus we have a story about how some European, Asian, South American and African Leaders are saying perhaps we need to do more with China and ignore U.S. wishes about some things.  That is the consequence of many Trump actions that harm our friends today and may help our opposition in the future.

So where does this leave us?

David Brooks today highlights the Faustian bargain Congressional GOP Leaders face. Yes, King Donald will sign bills they like and appoint Supreme Court Justices they like, but in the process they will be insulted, they will be supporting disengagement from global trade, they will be supporting incompetence and an aura of bigotry and cruelty.  Brooks has watched a lot of administrations and never before has he seen one with such callousness, incompetence, and demanding of personal loyalty.  He predicts a GOP lead impeachment sooner or later.  And this all strikes me as the behavior of a King, not a President.  Thus, henceforth, he shall be King Donald.

Of course, to we Democrats, President Pence will be no better except in temperament.  The policies will still be just as reactionary.  And behind President Pence, will be President Ryan, and then President somebody from the GOP Senate and then the Secretary of State.  So impeachment will not change the Supreme Court nomination direction.  Can 3 80 year justices hang on for another 4 years? And can the Democrats find an economic message to campaign on in rural areas?  Unanswerable questions.

But I have to return to health care as I frequently do.

The NYT today showed how illogical our debate over Health Care is.  We have what is called Premium Subsidies in Part D Medicare and ObamaCare.  The GOP wants to extend this concept to basic Medicare and do away with it in ObamaCare.  The Democrats want to prevent the extension of this concept to Medicare and keep it in ObamaCare/KingDonaldCare.  Interestingly, neither party wants to change it in Medicare Part D.  You would think a compromise might be there somewhere.

Link To Brooks Column

Link to Medicare Discussion